Day 156
My cell phone went on the blink recently so today I brought it back to the store where I bought it. It was still under warranty, but I went in assuming I would have to argue in order to get it replaced. To the contrary, the sales clerk who helped me could not have been nicer. He tried a number of things to fix it, and then told me they he would have to order a new one, at no cost to me. He said it would take one business day to arrive, but since today is Friday and Monday is a holiday, it won't be in until Tuesday. This was fine with me; I'm not a big cell phone user anyway. When the sales clerk gave me this information, it seemed as if he were worried that I would argue with him. He apologized repeatedly even though I said several times, several ways, no problem. On my way out I thanked him for his help, and said how wonderful he was to work with, and I meant it. And he said how much he appreciated me saying so.
It occurred to me after I left that, just as much as I was expecting him not to be helpful, he was expecting me to be irate that I would have to wait a few days for the phone. In this situation, we were each surprised by kindness and the courtesy of a stranger.
I think one of the great beauties of generosity and kindness (who usually hang out together) is that when someone is generous to me it feels great and sometimes remakable, meanwhile if I had done a similar thing for them I might have considered it a small, simple thing; nice but of not much note.
ReplyDeleteIt's like the two acts add up to produce a surplus of goodwill, each to the other.
I greatly enjoy checking in every now and than, thanks for the work in putting it on the web.
Cheers, Alistair